American Airlines New Software Stops Cancellations (Southwest Take Note) | Jackson Progress-Argus Street Partner Content

In other cases, however, this is not possible. If your journey is just beginning, it means you are going home. If you’re further along in your trip, cancellations can leave you without a place to stay and no easy way to get your trip back on track.

We’ve all seen the nightmare of hotel rooms and rental cars forcing people to land at the airport as they try to find their way home with overwhelming customer support. It’s not a pretty situation and it’s something many people worry about when planning a trip.

Southwest Airlines (LUV) – Get a free report Customers have experienced the worst of this holiday season after dealing with a massive outage that stranded tens of thousands of people over Christmas. Now, at a time when consumers are especially wary of flight cancellations, American Airlines (AAL) – Get a free report He found a new way to dramatically improve the record and keep the planes flying.

Basically, American has automated the post-hurricane recovery process. The software, the Hub Efficiency Analytics tool or “HEAT” as they call it, allows the airline to analyze all planes, gates and crew to maximize efficiency. View from the wing He reported. The HEAT system then indicates which flights to delay and which to cancel in order to have the least impact on the airline’s overall operations.

“This used to be a manual operation, but now computers are able to calculate millions of possible scenarios in severe storms that last for days. American is now publicly sharing the HEAT lists that performed well after the 4th of July weekend. Weather,” the website wrote.

Acknowledging that the software has prevented more than 1,000 flight cancellations, the airline is suggesting that rivals could cancel fewer flights if better decisions were made. Basically, American Airlines is taunting its competitors and letting them build, buy, or license similar software.

While Southwest hasn’t commented on whether it’s investing in American’s HEAT software package, it did make a big investment because of the holiday meltdown. After an assessment conducted in conjunction with an outside agency, Southwest developed a three-part plan to increase operational resilience in key areas within the company.

“We understand the root causes of the festival disruption, and are validating our internal review with a third-party review. Now, we look forward to reducing the risk of this major event happening again,” CEO Bob said. Jordan, president and CEO of Southwest. “We are implementing practical items to prepare for next winter – some items have already been completed. I want to thank our employees and customers for their patience and grace, and we are determined to create an even stronger airline.”

Areas of investment include accelerating the company’s technology investment and upgrading its infrastructure.

Now, the continued implementation of tools and technologies that allow for faster recovery in worst-case scenarios is a priority, and the airline is currently set to budget more than $1.3 billion through 2023 for investments, upgrades and maintenance of information technology systems.. For example, Crew Optimization software was recently updated to address a functional gap revealed in December. Crew scheduling and customer phone systems are optimized for better operational security and efficiency during high call volumes.

The company is working to improve cross-team collaboration and invest heavily in its water operations. This includes hiring more staff, adding equipment and signing up for new weather-related equipment.

“I am very encouraged by the work being done to address the challenges we faced in December,” said COO Andrew Watson.